Is the new Globe an authentic reconstruction? Simon Denison finds out
Praising what is lost/
Makes the remembrance dear.
(All’s Well, V. iii. 19)
As you stand outside the new Globe Theatre, which opened in Southwark this summer, and look up at its smooth white plaster walls, regular timber framing and tidy new brick plinth, it is impossible not to realise that you are looking at a brand new building.
Many visitors, however, no doubt imagine they have stepped back inside the genuine Globe of Shakespeare’s day. The value of the building - which is relatively uncomfortable as a theatre, and prone to extraneous noise such as traffic and low flying helicopters - largely depends on this illusion. So how accurate is the reconstruction?
The company who built it, Berkshire based McCurdy & Co, were employed to make the building look as authentic as possible. Peter McCurdy has long experience of restoring timber-framed buildings, and probably knows as much as anyone about traditional woodworking techniques. But what about the particular design of the Globe? Here the problems began, as there was very little evidence for what the original theatre actually looked like.
There were a handful of surviving drawings, which the builders relied on heavily. John Norden’s unscaled drawing of 1600 (the year after the Globe was built) showed a polygonal open-air building with an internal gable roof - interpreted as a canopy over the stage. There was also Hollar’s scale-drawing of a London panorama from later in the 17th century showing the second Globe Theatre, built on the foundations of the first and thought to have been the same size. This was interpreted as showing the Globe had a diameter of 100ft. It also showed the building had two stair-towers. Finally, De Witt’s late 16th century interior of the nearby Swan Theatre showed it had three levels of galleries and a stage with a projecting roof.
The archaeological excavation at the original Globe in the late 1980s was less helpful, but did suggest the theatre had 20 sides. The new Globe’s plinth was made of bricks based on those found at the excavation of the nearby Rose.
More useful were the 17th century building contracts let to Peter Streete, builder of the Globe, for the Fortune Theatre in 1600 and the Hope Theatre in 1613. These showed both buildings had the same depth of auditorium bays and the same height for each of the three galleries. It was assumed the Globe’s dimensions were the same. The contracts also specified the sizes of some key timbers and the type of materials to be used.
These strands of evidence suggested a basic plan for the theatre, but understanding how it might have been put together - what sorts of joints to use, how to peg the timbers, and so on - required an examination of numerous surviving contemporary buildings in London and elsewhere. A two-storey octagonal market cross of c 1600 at Wymondham in Norfolk provided clues to the exterior shaping of a polygonal building, while the mid-16th century roof of the Queen’s House at the Tower of London provided the timber sizes for the roof over the auditorium. The 46ft wooden canopy over the stage was based on the 42ft roof-span of Middle Temple Hall in London, and a former hunting lodge built by Henry VIII in Epping Forest provided an exact model for the stair-towers.
The timbers were all prepared by machine and finished by hand. The plaster used on the outside of the building was a mixture of lime, sand aggregate and either cow or goat hair, applied to the laths without cement or setting agent.
According to McCurdy, the only ‘compromise’ has been in deference to modern health and safety standards - for example, allowing enough room in the auditorium and providing suitable fire-exits, giving the theatre a capacity of 1,500, thought to be around half that of the original. The thatched roof has also been thoroughly fire-proofed. As for the ‘new look’ of the theatre, McCurdy says that the use of old or distressed materials is appropriate for repairing an old building, but unsuitable for an entirely new structure.
So is the new Globe an authentic reconstruction of the old? The answer is no. How could it be? It is a confection of numerous sources, a speculative model - albeit an impressive one - of how an Elizabethan theatre might have looked in 1600.
But it doesn’t matter. This was a theatrical not a historical project, conceived by an actor, Sam Wanamaker, as a tribute to Shakespeare. If the Globe adds, with its new theatrical possibilities, some frisson to Shakespearean drama - and as an auditorium it must be an improvement on the RSC’s two soulless houses at Stratford and the Barbican - then all the research and the building will have been worth doing.
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